Alabama

Alabama gymnasts hungry to qualify for NCAA Championships

View full sizeAlabama's Geralen Stack-Eaton (left) is congratulated by teammates after scoring a 9.925 on the balance beam during a meet against Missouri at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on Friday, March 9, 2012. (The Birmingham News/Mark Almond)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama - Sarah Patterson is atwitter over Twitter. @UACoachSarah has almost 1,800 followers, and this week, among other things, they could see a Twitpic of her team from atop the Space Needle in Seattle.

One of the people the Alabama gymnastics coach follows is Carson Tinker, the Alabama football player whose girlfriend was killed almost a year ago by the tornado that ripped Tuscaloosa apart.

When asked how her team was coping with not winning the recent SEC Championships meet in Duluth, Ga., Patterson quoted a tweet from @carsontink that quoted Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

"Carson Tinker tweeted it. There was a quote that Coach Saban said: 'You're either hungry or you're satisfied.' Are you satisfied with where we are, or are you hungry to move forward?"

The Crimson Tide is hungry to get back to Duluth, because that's where the NCAA Championships will be staged in two weeks.

To get there and have a shot at winning a second consecutive national championship - and its sixth overall - the Tide must finish at least second tonight in the NCAA Seattle Regional, which starts at 8 p.m. CDT.

"We want to go out there and show everybody that we're not down and we'll come back with a fight," senior star Geralen Stack-Eaton said.

Alabama has won an NCAA-best 26 regional titles, and it has advanced to the NCAA Championships 29 consecutive years.

The fourth-ranked Tide is the No. 1 seed in its regional. Ninth-ranked LSU is seeded second and Arizona is seeded third. Host Washington, Iowa and Central Michigan also will compete.

"We don't want to treat it as if it isn't an important meet, because this is THE meet," Alabama junior Ashley Sledge said. "If we don't do well at this meet, there is no rest of the season. We just want to have a great performance."

Alabama and LSU have met twice this season. The Tide won 197.025 to 196.575 in a Feb. 24 meet at Baton Rouge, La. In the SEC Championships, Alabama scored a 196.775 to finish second behind top-ranked Florida. LSU scored a 196.425 to finish fourth behind Georgia.

"Everything counts, every little step," Sledge said. "We've worked on instead of taking a big, huge step backwards and pulling your foot back, you just take a small step, bring it back and just act like you didn't step, because that's the difference between a tenth and .025, and that's what advances people to nationals and what sends people home. Just focusing on the small things, because they really, really count now."